


Playing Hard to Get

by st_aurafina



Series: Playing Hard to Get [1]
Category: Iron Man (2008), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Crossover, Ficathon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-31
Updated: 2009-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-04 05:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is trying to break into superhero society.  Scott Summers can't get away fast enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing Hard to Get

**Author's Note:**

> Written in the 2009 marvel_crossing exchange, for wizefics. Set after the events of X3 and Iron Man. Thanks to lilacsigil and likeadeuce for the beta.

The sun was well and truly over the horizon and Scott was contemplating the end of the working day when a stranger stepped on board. He was carefully dressed for leisure, which marked him as having nothing to do with the commercial fishing industry. The man cringed as his shoes crunched over shrimp heads and less identifiable detritus. Scott looked askance at him; his face was oddly familiar, though Scott was sure they had never met.

"Uh, I'm looking for Scott Summers." The man waved towards the end of the dock, where Lee watched over the last shipment of ice-packed crates. "Ms Forrester pointed me in this direction."

Scott straightened his aching back and leaned a little way over the side to catch Lee's attention. She gave a half shrug and a nod in his direction. In the wordless language that comes from working in close quarters in life-threatening situations, Scott took the gesture to mean "The incredibly rich man seems otherwise harmless. Don't let him drown or we'll be up to our necks in law suits."

The man watched the exchange politely. "She's very protective of your virtue. It didn't look like she was going to let me up here – I guess my reputation precedes me." He held out his hand. "I'm Tony Stark. I wanted to talk to you about the Xavier School."

Tension replaced well-earned fatigue. Scott scowled at Stark. "Ask them yourself, if you're interested." He picked up the hose and squeezed the trigger, aiming close enough to Stark that the water pressure threatened him with an unpleasant mix of scales and scum.

Stark side-stepped the fishy sluice with unconscious grace, stepping neatly up onto an overturned crate. "With all due respect, I've tried. Several times. I make an appointment, I show up on time. I step through the gates and the next thing I know I'm standing in the Schenectady DMV applying for a learner's permit."

Scott snorted as he turned the hose on the sorting table. "Guess they've found themselves a telepath."

"Tell me about it. I always imagined that telepathy would be sexier. I mean – Schenectady!"

"You obviously don't know many telepaths – the sex is always on their terms entirely." Scott swept sheets of water across the gleaming steel surfaces, then reached for the long handled broom to sweep the deck. "How did you find me?"

Stark raised his eyebrows. "Are you serious? Is there anyone in the vigilante business who doesn't know Scott Summers is working a shrimp boat in the Carolinas? The mutant underground is an incestuous place – you all live in each other's pockets. Frankly, it's a bit disturbing."

Scott shrugged. "And yet you can't get your foot in the door of a school. That must sting a little."

"Well, I'm hoping you can help me with that. I know how exclusive clubs work – maybe once I've explained how our interests overlap, I can get an invitation. There's a new initiative starting up, we're looking for talented people." Stark spread his hands wide, palms down; a gesture that probably looked great in the board room. "I'm not Stryker. I'm sorry he pissed in your pond with that bullshit. It ruined everyone's chances for a polite conversation, and that's not cool. I'm from the private sector. We don't do things that way."

Scott rested his weight against the broom for a moment, and contemplated the man in front of him with a sour expression. His navy sweater was knotted just so, and his rubber-soled shoes were blazing white. Tony Stark looked like a catalogue photo for _Today's Yachtsman_. He couldn't think of anyone he'd less want mollifying him. Perhaps the Wolverine, but still, it was a close call.

He shook his head. "Sorry, but I don't think I can help you." He tapped two fingers at his temple with easy familiarity, despite the fact he hadn't worn the visor for months. "I'm not qualified to move in those circles anymore."

"Yeah, I read the files. Whatever vaporised a good chunk of Alkali Lake drained your power. You know, it's still weird up there – water molecules aren't supposed to just hang in the air like that. If you ever want to see a meteorologist cry, that's the place to be." Stark shaded his eyes with his hand as he looked up at the sky. "Look, can we go get a coffee or something? I just want to talk, maybe ask you some questions."

"I have to finish this up, then I need some sleep. How about I meet you tonight?" Scott nodded towards the line of ramshackle restaurants that faced the harbour. "Promise you a good meal."

Stark grimaced and look at his watch, clearly displeased with the idea of remaining in South Carolina for the better part of a day. Scott watched him weigh the relative values up in his head, and thought about how much fun it was going to be to slip away on his bike in an hour or so. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he questioned whether it was wrong to run out on Lee with no warning. The colder, crueller voice he had been cultivating for the past few months told him not to worry. He was nothing to her – just another hand on the boat. There'd be another to take his place soon enough. It would be better this way.

Stark made his decision with a crisp nod. "Right. I'll meet you back here at what? Six?"

Scott stretched his mouth into an honest, open smile and extended his hand. "Sounds like a plan." He'd spent enough time here anyway, if his occupation really was common knowledge. He wouldn't want people to think he'd put down roots and settled.

***  
With half the country between him and the Carolinas, Scott was able to convince himself that he'd done the right thing. Still, each night, even when he coughed up the cash for a room with a bed, Lee was among the faces that watched him accusingly through the night.

Working as a short order cook didn't leave Scott with the all-over body fatigue he craved to hold the dreams at bay, but the work was brainlessly repetitive. It was worth sacrificing sleep to work in a place with a constant turnover of staff – nobody worked here long enough to make connections, except for the ancient and raddled manager. As long as Scott kept the plates coming through the window, Vera was content to leave him to his own devices back in the kitchen.

An unusual order at the end of the breakfast rush shook Scott out of his torpor: eggs béarnaise wasn't a popular request from the truck-stop clientele. The request was written in crisp blue capitals that cut into the paper, not Vera's illegible scrawl. Scott heard a weird wheezy noise coming from the counter. Worried that Vera was having another angina attack, he leaned out of the service window. Vera's brassy bouffant leaned dangerously close to a dark-headed man in a natty pinstripe suit. For the sake of his sanity, Scott withdrew before he heard Vera giggle again.

He searched among the dusty implements for a balloon whisk, wondering where he'd learned the recipe for béarnaise sauce. By the time he pinned the memory down to the hours planted in front of the television after Alkali Lake, the emulsion was starting to thicken, and there was no time to dwell.

In the end, the sauce came out well, and Scott brought the order out himself. He even put a little sprig of parsley on top of the eggs. He laid the plate on the counter in front of Tony Stark with aplomb and helped himself to a cup of coffee while Vera set up the tables for lunch.

Tony shook out the paper napkin and spread it on his lap, then picked up the fork and gestured with it. "So, that was hilarious, back in South Carolina. You're real popular there now, by the way." He dragged the fork through the eggs, letting the yolk mingle with the sauce. "I'm not going to tell you what those eight hours cost me."

Scott waited until the fork was between Tony's lips. "I'm not going to tell you what I put in that sauce, either."

To his credit, Tony shovelled the eggs in without flinching. "Don't ask, don't tell. I've eaten worse and more mysterious things in my life." He chewed happily. "It's not bad, actually."

Scott leaned a hip against the counter and sipped his coffee. "So, how did you find me?"

"Wouldn't a better question be 'Why did you find me?'" Tony wiped his mouth with the napkin and balled it up in his hand. "I came to tell you my theory on why mutants hang out in these enclaves."

"You have a mutant ghetto theory? Nice. I can't wait to hear it." Scott put down his cup, and crossed his arms. "Tell me all about how I could be putting my life to better use."

Tony tore a piece of toast in half and used it to swab his plate. "No, you misunderstand. I don't mean to say 'You know what you mutants need to do?' Not what I meant at all. Here's the thing – you're extraordinary. And that's hard enough to live with it, let alone dealing with laser beams shooting out of your eyes."

"Force beams." Scott unfolded one arm and picked up his cup to cover his frustration – why was he correcting the man? Tony Stark was clearly very happy with the sound of his own voice, and Scott had gone to a lot of trouble to find a place where every conversation wasn't about mutant powers. He didn't need to ask for trouble.

"What?"

"They weren't lasers. I didn't go to MIT but I know what a fucking laser is. I made force beams. No heat. No excitation."

Tony smirked. "Wow. You must be the life and soul of the party with that pitch." He slugged the last of his own coffee down and held out his cup for a refill. "So, you have a group of exceptional people, and they finally find a safe place to exist. And for a while, that's the most perfect thing on earth: safety, acceptance, a society of peers."

"You make it sound so great," Scott's voice was bitter as he filled Tony's cup. "I wonder why anyone would ever leave."

"Well, I think that's the problem. Outside the fence is scary, real-world stuff. Inside, it's all fancy-dress and sleeping with the enemy – did you ever wonder why that happens, by the way? Why you all prefer this hero/villain dynamic? At least the enemy is your kind of people. You know what that mentality is? That's a cult. And the problem with cults is that on the other side of the fence, the world moves on, and you don't know anything about it. And you're a couple of generations into this now- you've got kids in that school who are twelve, thirteen. I think the world's changed since you were that age. Maybe the time is right for people to see the good that you can do. That we can all do, mutants or not."

The bell on the door jangled as the first of the lunch rush came in off the street, and Vera threw Scott a dark and significant look. Scott nodded, and flipped back the counter, gesturing with his head to Tony."I have an actual job. Come and talk while I cook."

Tony talked about the Avenger Initiative while Scott flipped burgers and cracked eggs. As the seats filled in the diner, Tony picked up a knife and started slicing tomatoes and shredding lettuce with the cheerful flair of the weekend cook. Once the pace was fast enough that conversation was impossible, Scott threw Tony an apron and stood him in front of the grill. Between orders, he ducked into the diner to talk to Vera. It had been fun sparring with Tony, but Scott didn't want to get familiar with anyone right now. It was going to happen sometime, but Tony had forced his hand – it was time to move on.

"Look, Vera, I hate to cut out in the middle of a shift, but Tony will stand in for me." Scott pointed through the hatch towards Tony as he sent a patty soaring, end over end, catching it in a bun. "I have to hit the road." He shrugged out of his greasy apron and wiped his hands on it.

Vera gave a non-committal grunt, and clipped another order onto the wheel. "S'long as he keeps the plates coming, I don't care who's working the grill. But I ain't paying you for today. He gets your share."

Scott shrugged equably. "You've never been more than fair to me, Vera. Thanks for that." He planted a kiss on her powdered cheek and pressed the apron into her hands. "You take care." The last things he saw as he departed the diner were Vera patting the place where he kissed her, and Tony peering through the hatch with a confused and suspicious expression. Then he was on his bike, and leaving the town far behind.

***

Honestly, if Scott had to admit it to himself, engine maintenance at the local airstrip wasn't really working out. He thought the familiarity would be easy to get lost in, but the smell of engine oil and the echoing sounds of the hangar followed him nightly into dreams of his father and Jean and flames against the sky. Three days into the job, he was jangled and sleepless and the other mechanics avoided even casual conversations with him. It was understandable, then, that when he heard the crisp footsteps across the tarmac, his first instinct was to grab Tony Stark by the neck and beat his head against the ground. Instead, he clenched his fists under the hood of the Cessna and tried to concentrate on checking the fuel lines.

"Vera sends her love." Tony's hands were in his pockets, his posture carefully casual. "I think she had a thing for you. And hey, that sure was something, my brush with minimum wage America."

"Nobody's supposed to be on the field without ID." Scott reached out for a ratchet to find Tony anticipating his need like a scrub nurse. The metal was warm from Tony's hand, and Scott shifted his grip on it to find a cool section.

"Oh, please. Show me an airfield in the world I can't get onto."

"I doubt you're very popular in Kabul." Scott tightened a valve with slow, careful strokes, but the ratchet slipped on the awkward angle, and it clattered away out of reach. Scott's hand shot out reflexively to catch it as it fell, but managed only to slice open a knuckle instead. He spun around and swore, shaking his hand.

Tony looked at the splatter of red against the concrete, and reached into a pocket for a handkerchief. "Ouch. Don't you hate that?" He held out the linen square, a picture of urbanity. The sting in Scott's knuckle became a roar of blood in his ears, and he lunged at Tony with his fists clenched.

It was a short struggle: Tony went down like a bowling pin at the impact of Scott's shoulder. Scott hadn't trained with a team for over a year, but his body hadn't forgotten the movements. Seconds later, he had Tony immobilised against the concrete floor, and Scott's head cleared enough to realise that Tony was gasping for air, his legs kicking in vain.

He sat up, heaved Tony upright. "You're only winded. Take shallow breaths. It'll pass." He helped Tony lean forward. "I thought you were supposed to be a super-hero."

"In the suit!" Tony gasped. "In the suit, I would have kicked your butt."

Scott looked at him, surprised. "What good is that? You don't wear the suit twenty-four hours a day."

Tony shrugged, his sides still heaving as he caught his breath. "But I'll only do superheroing when I'm in the suit."

Scott's bark of laughter echoed around the hangar."It doesn't really work that way."

"How the hell would I know how it works?" Tony struggled to his feet."There is no 'Superheroism for Dummies', you know. I'm making this up as I go along."

In the absence of that sudden rush of anger, Scott could see the absurdity in the situation. "You're doing all right – you kept finding me. That's a good start – I wasn't exactly making myself visible."

Tony held out his phone: it showed a blinking display. "Kind of had that covered by my day job, sorry."

Scott reached out for the phone. The display showed a map of Oklahoma, with a red dot right over the airfield in Norman. "What is this? A tracker?"

"I guess you could call it that." Tony leaned against a wing strut, all suave again now he wasn't gasping like a fish out of water. "You might not have powers, but you're still putting out a detectable emission, something entirely unique to you."

"I didn't think that technology was possible." Scott imagined what it could mean: a hand-held scanner for mutant powers.

"Everything's impossible until the first time." Tony shrugged with terrifying nonchalance. "No, seriously, it wasn't hard to do. It's a first principles concept – think hard about how the power works. Then you create the sensor pattern, task it to a satellite and write yourself an app." He took the phone back and tucked it in his pocket. "It's not a big deal."

Scott ran his hand through his hair. A portable mutant detector."I think you'd better talk to some friends of mine."

"Well, finally." Tony let his arms fall to his sides. "I wish I'd mentioned it earlier. My carbon footprint on this project is huge. Come on, I'm parked over here." He turned to leave.

Scott caught his elbow before he made it to the hangar door. "I don't fly anything I haven't run maintenance on." He steered Tony towards the Cessna.

"I don't know about this." Tony looked dubiously inside the tiny cabin. "What's the in-flight entertainment like on one of these things?"

***

Tony Stark was a lousy passenger. He argued about approach angles and velocity and altitude and flight paths, while the countryside crept along below like a patchwork quilt. Scott was inches away from slapping Tony's hands if they wandered onto the control panel one more time.

"No wonder you had to build yourself a suit. Nobody wants to fly a back-seat driver."

"That's not true. Everyone wants to fly with me." Tony fiddled with his headphones. "You know, these are lousy. We should have stopped at a Radio Shack first. I could build something better for less than twenty bucks."

"What's it like?" Scott said, to distract Tony before he started disassembling something. "In the suit, I mean. What's it like to fly that?"

Tony slumped back in his seat with an exhalation. "How can I describe it without sounding trite? I mean, the obvious thing to say is that it's like sex, but honestly, I haven't had sex that good. Or intense. Or life-threatening. It's amazing. What are you going to do when your powers come back?"

"What do you mean?" Scott looked sideways at Tony; he had a curiously intense expression.

"Well, you're still a mutant, and you're still doing," Tony made a wavy gesture with his hands, "Whatever it is that makes those force beams, just at lower levels. I've only been tracking you for a few months, but even I can see those levels are creeping up. Sooner or later, fwoosh! You should probably keep a pair of those shades handy."

Scott kept his eyes on the scope, focused on the flight ahead. He had a sudden, irrational dread that returning to Westchester would trigger his power, and then he'd be trapped there. And he really wasn't ready to go back, not yet. Maybe not ever. The silence in the cockpit grew steadily as the little plane ate up the miles.

Beside him, Tony tilted his head and examined him for a moment, hands crossed over his knee. "You're awfully quiet over there. And you're doing that chin thing." He straightened his legs. "Oh, I see. I'm intruding on your grief. I'm sorry." Tony was blatantly not sorry. "Do you think you'll be done with that soon? Because this may have started out as self-protective, but from what I've seen, you're starting not to give a damn who you hurt along the way."

"Shut up." Scott did not want to think about Lee, not now, as he headed back to Westchester. There was only so much guilt he could deal with.

Tony continued, blithely ignoring Scott's grim expression. "The thing is, I really have the feeling that we're going to need someone with your abilities, before the next crazy guy in a helmet shows up to force his world view down our throats. And to be honest, it doesn't look to me like you're very taken with employment at the bottom end of the market. I'm just saying – you've walked away from three jobs in the last month. Honestly, you can do so much better with your skill set."

"I don't have those abilities anymore!" Scott grabbed Tony by the jaw and looked him in the eye. "If I did, your brains would be plastered all over the cockpit now."

Tony looked back at him with a serious expression, but didn't try to escape Scott's grip. "Do we kiss now? Because this is all very charged and I'm kind of feeling it and we're probably going to crash so we may as well."

Scott pushed Tony away hard, and grabbed the yoke back, steadying the plane, re-establishing a smooth line. "You're an asshole."

Tony nodded. "Yeah, I know. People tell me that a lot. But I'm serious. You may not shoot force beams out of your eyes right now, but you're smart, and you're resourceful, and you've got field experience I can only dream of. I contacted you because I wanted to speak to the people who made the X-Men a success. I think I've found what I need right here. If you're prepared to negotiate."

Scott took some deep breaths, and thought about the school, and what would happen if every cop and soldier of fortune could get their hands on a mutant tracker. "That depends: how many people have you told about this tracking technology?"

"Nobody, really." Tony pulled out his phone and tapped on the screen. "I mean, you're kind of over-estimating your own importance in the scheme of things if you think people really want to know where Scott Summers has been hiding out."

Scott reached across and grabbed the phone. "It sounds pretty adaptable, though. Could you use that technology to track a mutant who controls magnetic fields, for example? Or someone who makes ice?" He pressed the crease between his eyes – something Jean used to do when he was at his most frazzled. The team needed to understand about this danger, and he could whine and moan about how unfair it was that he had to be the one to bring it to them, or he could get on with the job.

Tony made a face. "I suppose, if I had the data. I wasn't looking for those people, so I didn't set it up that way." He eyed the device in Scott's hand. "Wait a minute. Are you taking me to that school so they can wipe my mind?"

"I thought you wanted to meet a sexy telepath?"

"You haven't been home in a year. How do you know this telepath isn't ninety years old with dentures and a colostomy bag?" Tony made a desperate lunge for the phone, but Scott held it high over his head and laughed.

"What does it matter? You'll see whatever the telepath wants you to see, and you'll love it."

Tony fell limply back against the seat and waved a casual hand. "Well, at least I know they have a sense of humour. Schenectady! I can work with that kind of mind."

Scott snorted. "I know. I'm looking forward to meeting that mind myself." He relaxed into his seat, and checked the ETA for Westchester. Tony was right – his friends needed his help. For the first time in a long while, that idea did not overwhelm him with guilt and dread. He had a reason to return home, and whether or not he stayed, he wasn't afraid anymore.


End file.
